New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1887-12-24
4 PRACTICAL SIDE or IT.

The tariff question has a practical side which
every one can understand. thousand and
one theories and controversial issues may be
raised between the Protection and Free Trade
schools, but the core Of the whole matter is
wages. American industries may be able to
compete with English Industries in all ether
respects but they are now placed at marked
disadvantage with reference to the cost OF
labor. Under free trad. British manufactures,
cheapcncd by cheap labor, would be pttcd
against American manufactures produced with
bettcr-pad labor That competition, all other
things being equal, could not continue unless
the prices of American labor were scaled down
to the basis of English and Continental cheap
labor. Free trade, as practical question and
not as an economic theory, must involve one
of two things either a general reduction Of
wages throughout the country, or else the de-
struction of American industries through Brit
ish competition.
This is the practical side of the question
which President Cleveland has suddenly raised.
1t is the side of this controversy which Repub-
lcan journals should constantly present to
their readers during the coming year FREQ
trade implies cheap labor and low wages, or
else the ruin Of American industries. DO
manufacturers, and employers generally, wish
to face the prospect of battling with labor
unions in harassing struggle to put down
wages to the English scale? DO working
people desire TO have their earnings cut down
everywhere from onc-third to two-thirds
These are the real questions to be discussed IN
every counting-room and factory. Free trade
means. at the best, cheap labor; at the worst,
the overthrow of every struggling OF prosper
Gus industry.
If any one has any doubt as to the real bear
ing of this question of labor, let HIM satisfy
himself by going into any of the stores during
the Christmas season where the products OF
American cheap labor are sold. Certain classes
of woman's work in America are as cheap and
as ill-paid as any Free Trader can desire TO
have them Everything that can be made by
scwing-womcn by hand or machinc-trcadIc Is
sold on the counters so fabuiously low shat
American women Of moderate means have
ceased to do more than little of their own
sewing The prices Of these goods are low be-
cause the labor is cheap. The scwIng-womcn
are paid next TO nothing for their toll. Their
starvation wages fill the counters with the
cheapest of cheap goods. America, as Mrs
Campbell has shown in THE TRIBUNE, already
has free trade in womans misery.
Now it may be possible under the President 5
system Of free trade to have the counters III the
same stores piled up with the products of mems
cheap labor as we'll as womcn's. If wages are
reduced for men in the same proportion as the
earnings of helpless scwing-womcn have been
cut down to the misery level, competition with
England can be maintained in various Industries
under free trade. If the reduction does not
take place. the manufacturers will 90 under
and there will be no employment at all. 1t
will be Hobson's choice between cheap labor
and ruin and cheap labor for men of all trades
will mean what it means to-day to the wrctchcd
sewing women whose work sells for farthlng
in the shops. 1t will mean misery and want.